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The Club and The Rules Set 2 (archived)

THE CLUB AND THE RULES

The Club

The Watching Club is an experimental democratic group that aims, for now, to pay attention to attention, to what focused consciousness does of and to itself, and through practice to make beauty with observation.

Membership to the club is currently open. Members gain access to the list of watches and the parameters and are asked, if participating, to abide by the rules and to provide a 10-word (or fewer) description of what was watched using the watching club rules. There are no other requirements for membership. All who receive the e-mail about upcoming watches are considered members. Members are expected to join (that is to send and receive an e-mail from The Watching Club) before their first watch. Members are not required to participate in every watch, although they are expected to watch at least occasionally.

Send an e-mail to <thewatchingclub {at} yAhoo {dOt} com> to join.

The Rule Group determines the rules for the club. The current rules are listed below, and the blog portion of this site serves to document the discussion around rule changes and as a repository of previous sets of rules. Membership to the rule group is also currently open.

The Rules

(always subject to revision according to the rules group)

Bring your own chair. Seated is the prescribed position for watching; a chair may be moved at maximum of once an hour.

The minimum watch time is 2 hours; there is no maximum. Moving from the chair is allowed once an hour for 5 minutes. Plan accordingly.

A watch is synchronized in time and in “subject” but not necessarily in location. (In other words, if a watch of a convenience store is scheduled for noon-3pm Eastern Time, participants on the West Coast would be able to participate from 9am-noon by watching a convenience store. Watchers are expected to vary slightly in interpretations of the subject as described by the rule group; watchers are expected to use “common sense” discretion and not to use the interpretation as an opportunity for wild divergent thinking.)

The list will be updated after watchers have submitted their 10-word descriptions to the rule group following the watch.

No cellphones, even for checking the time.

The Rule Group determines what gets watched next. The watchers watch.

The two groups (the watchers and the rule group) may be comprised of the same people, but they are different groups.

In addition to selecting what the watchers are to watch, and updating The List of watches, The Rule Group also documents its decision-making process how it seems fit, currently by posting the e-mail discussion to the blog.

A group of watchers may choose to split into two groups during the watch: talkers and no-talkers; a group of watchers may choose to split into two groups after a watch, to process, if necessary: talkers and no-talkers.

SMS messages, limited to written characters, may be considered “talking” and not documentation (which is not allowed), provided these texts are deleted within 3 hours.

Our membership is open. Members gain access to the list of watches and the parameters and are asked, if participating, to abide by the rules and to provide a 10-word (or fewer) description of what was watched using the watching club rules. There are no other requirements for membership. All who receive the e-mail about upcoming watches are considered members. Members are expected to join (that is to send and receive an e-mail from The Watching Club) before their first watch. Members are not required to participate in every watch, although they are expected to watch at least occasionally.

Currently, all rules are open for discussion, and The Rule Group determines of and by itself how rules are revised.

There is to be no documentation of the watching, EXCEPT the following three types:

a list of what was watched, where the list items are fewer than 10 words per location, and

whatever documentation becomes part of the rules, provided the rules discussion does not subvert the prohibition against documentation of the watch, and

documentation of the rules group, its considerations, methods, and reasons for acting.

(This is Rule Set 2. 2/29/16 finalized.)

The List

Watched:

a. In and around West Cemetery, Amherst, MA 2/21/16 from approximately 3:10pm until about 4:20pm. b. Anderson and Our Savior Lutheran Cemeteries from road between them 2/21/2016 from 12 noon to 3 pm pst in Stanwood, WA.

The door at the Guilded Gallery, which houses a guild i hope to join, on Thursday 3/3/2016 from 1 pm to 2:45 pm PST, in Stanwood, WA b. The hallway west of the NYPOP gallery, south of the freight elevators, 526 W. 26th St, Suite 314, NYC. 3/3/16 from 4:50-6:40pm EST.